Task-based Supplementation: Achieving High School Textbook Goals through Form-focused Interaction

Task-based Supplementation: Achieving High School Textbook Goals through Form-focused Interaction

  Despite various improvements in the 20<SUP>th</SUP> century, and in contrast to official educational goals, high school English teaching in Korea at the beginning of the 21<SUP>st</SUP> century remains test-driven. The College Scholastic Ability Test, the epitome of high-stakes testing, continues to focus on reading and listening comprehension, as measured by un-piloted, low-order-thinking, multiple choice questions. Consequently, high school English classes emphasize memory-based test-preparation, and skills-based textbooks contain lengthy reading passages, which are often studied to the exclusion of more performanceoriented sections. In this extrinsically motivated and highly competitive situation, students who cannot rote-learn huge amounts of lexis and grammar quickly fall behind and turn off from learning English.   This paper reports on a study which attempted to address this situation through a student-centered, interactive approach to textbook supplementation. The aim was to make the required curriculum content enjoyable, meaningful, and accessible for all students, by presenting it in an interactive context. This would show that language performance and education of the whole person can be promoted even in restrictive, test-driven situations, and that teachers can stimulate positive educational change from the bottom up.